In Search of Rumsfeld's 5,000 Iraqi Small Businesses (Page 4)

A Report and a Specialist

Thanks to information provided by a Congressional aide whom I had contacted regarding Rumsfeld's statement, I did download a recent report prepared by the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, "Conditions and Expectations for Private Enterprise in Iraq."

This report, however, did not have the facts that I sought. I sent e-mails to the chamber, but thus far it too has not been able to figure out how Rumsfeld came up with the 5,000 figure.

As a result of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce report I identified a US government organization involved in business development in Iraq.

There I spoke with a privatization specialist who had recently returned from Iraq.

Requesting strict anonymity, he informed me that Rumsfeld's data was "not crazy" because there was in fact a growing private sector in Iraq. He underscored, however, that to the best of his knowledge the kind of statistics cited by the Secretary were simply not available. He suggested that I contact Thomas C. Foley, the director of private sector development for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, for further information.

At the mention of Foley, I recalled that while researching Iraqi businesses I had come across his name in an article in the October 20, 2003, Los Angeles Times, in which he appeared to contradict the public optimism expressed by Rumsfeld's figures:

Already, the privatization program, which US officials began mapping out before the invasion, is taking longer than many in Washington hoped. Thomas C. Foley, a big fund-raiser for President Bush who heads Iraq's private-sector development, now predicts that the transition may take three to five years. "It's going to take a long time to convert these assets," Foley said.

My efforts to obtain Mr. Foley's e-mail address from the State Department have been unsuccessful.

Cheney, Bush and Evans

I may not have been happy with Rumsfeld's 5,000 figure, but his colleagues in the Bush Administration evidently were, expanding upon the figure in their rhetorical flourishes.

On October 3, the Vice President noted that "the economy [of Iraq] is picking up. There are thousands of new small businesses. The city of Baghdad, the streets are bustling with economic activity."

It's not without interest to observers of the Administration's use of language that, in Cheney's speech, Rumsfeld's already vague "5,000" had now been substituted for the less concrete and even more dubious figure "thousands."

And on October 11, in his Saturday radio address, George W. Bush--making a statement even more general and therefore even less verifiable than Rumsfeld's or Cheney's--noted that "Iraq has a strong entrepreneurial tradition, and since the liberation of that country, thousands of new businesses have been launched." Note that the adjective "small" used by Rumsfeld has disappeared.

Later, during his visit to Baghdad in mid-October, Secretary of Commerce Don Evans said the following, as reported by the October 21, 2003, New Republic Online:

As I drive through the streets of Baghdad, I see commerce is coming back--I see--I talk to people--I talk to the Iraqi people... I have talked to a lot of young entrepreneurs who are excited about the opportunity to now be real entrepreneurs and start new companies, thousands of new companies as a matter of fact have started since the end of the war.

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